


The Haunting of Cirilla

by anarchycox



Series: Witcher Bingo Card Prompts [22]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ciri faces her own version of the trials, Coming of Age, Facing the past, Gen, Ghosts, ciri and lambert are always my brotp, haunted building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox
Summary: Ciri cannot face the same trials that the others did due to the lack of mutagens and also just it is a different time and way. But still they have to know that she can survive the path and have devised alternate trials for her. And now she faces the last one, confronting her past.
Series: Witcher Bingo Card Prompts [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746034
Comments: 22
Kudos: 76





	The Haunting of Cirilla

**Author's Note:**

> I cheated a little and combined my bingo card prompts haunted building and ghosts.

Ciri was blindfolded, but she recognized the smell. She was riding with Geralt and clutched at his armor. “Geralt,” she whispered.

“Shh,” he replied and squeezed her hand. It was loud, filled with people. It shouldn’t be, it should be a tomb. They were in a dead place, that seemed to have forgotten it was dead. She heard children laughing, people calling out their wares. Didn’t they know they were all dead? Someone should tell them they were memories, ghosts. It was rude not to.

She supposed it was up to her, she was their queen after all. Ciri just buried her face between Geralt’s shoulder blades and tried to tune it out. She recognized the sound of the horse hooves on the stone. She knew that stone well. It smelled wrong, not like smoke and blood and screams. Screams had a smell, or maybe that was all the shit the masses of bodies had voided as they died. Ciri squeezed tighter as their horses stopped. Geralt started to dismount, but she dug in as hard as she could. “I’m not ready,” she begged.

“Yes, you are,” Geralt replied, calm, utterly certain. “Because if you aren’t, you will not walk the path.”

Ciri swallowed at that. Years she had been training, passed every test they put before her. New trials for a new witcher that carried no mutagens in her. And this was the last one. She let go of Geralt, let him dismount, and then slid off Roach. She let Geralt guide her into the building though she could have walked it from memory. She counted the steps and knew that she stood in the great hall. In front of where the royal dais was.

It smelled stale. She heard a door slam, it was one of them, or a servant for whomever lived in this crypt now.

Ciri could smell the dead, and wondered how anyone lived with that.

“It is Hallow’s Eve, Cirilla, a dangerous night for Witchers when the conjunction of spheres is at its thinnest and monsters awaken. Your final trial is simple, child. Survive until morning.”

She felt the ghost of a kiss at her temple and then Geralt was gone, they all were. She heard doors slam again and waited. She could barely hear the faint sounds of the crowds outside, but they were muted by the heavy stone, the moat that separated the keep from the people. Ciri took the blindfold off and stared at the throne. Her grandmother’s throne. Her throne. It was covered in dust, moths having eaten at the cushion.

Ciri couldn’t help herself and gave a deep curtsy to that empty throne. “Your majesty,” she whispered. For a moment she heard her grandmother’s laugh and froze. She straightened and brought a dagger to hand. It was one night in her home, they were taking it easy on her, and she was furious at them for that. A door opened and Ciri turned, “Yes?” she called out, expecting a servant but there was none. 

That was odd, certainly the keep would not have stayed empty, not with life clearly having returned to Cintra. Ciri began to walk while it was still light out, and made her way down corridors that she well remembered. And there was no one.

The whole keep was empty.

“Hello?” Ciri called out.

She shivered as she heard a shout but she pressed on. A few doors opened and closed through the halls, but none right by her. Ciri made her way to her room. She laughed at herself when she knocked on the door, but it was already opening when she reached for the handle. Ciri went into her childhood, dagger at the ready. It was the same, oh gods save her, it was the same. Ciri lay down on her bed and began to weep.

“It’s all dead, all of it,” she said. She then screamed in despair and rage. How could her wolves do this to her, it wasn’t fair. In that moment she would have preferred the mutagens that would have likely killed her. They had buried her alive and she would never forgive them for it. Never. Not even her best friend. If Lambert really loved her like he swore when they blew up stuff, he would have sneaked in after to help her.

Or to bang about doors more to scare her.

That bastard. Ciri stood up and stormed out of the room, “Lambert, you jackass, I know this is you!” She ran around the keep, secret passages and she could hear laughing and running. She had been right, it was him playing a bastard of a trick. She ran following the steps and burst into a room. “Ha!” she shouted, and dropped to her knees when she saw Mousesack at the window, holding the army back. He looked at her and he was pale, eyes sunken or not even there.

And then he wasn’t there. 

She was alone in a room with a chaise stained in her grandmother’s blood. Ciri crawled over to it, found herself licking at those rusty stains, the thick dust covering them. All the other furniture in the room was covered in cloth but not this. This was to be borne witness to. “Grandmother.”

“Yes?”

She felt a hand caress her hair and she didn’t look. She just pressed her cheek to the stain. “If you are Calanthe, no matter how warped the creature, you will not harm me. And if it is not Calanthe, well, give me a moment and you can do what you want.”

The hand and the feeling was gone. Ciri lay there until it was dark out the window. Candles lit in the room on their own. “Lambert, this really isn’t funny,” she said. She finally stood and went to the window where Mousesack had held magic far longer than he should have been able to, for them. She looked down and could see Geralt and Lambert standing at the bridge protecting the keep, protecting the people from the keep, she wasn’t sure. “Lambert, this really isn’t funny.” But he couldn’t hear her from where he was standing sentry. “Father,” she whispered. Geralt would certainly hear her and come to her aid. She could just see his hands clench at the small of his back.

He heard her and he was not coming.

Ciri nodded. This was her trial, and she would survive it to kill them all and be the last wolf. She clenched her jaw and didn’t look at those blood stains as she left her grandmother’s room.

It was difficult to walk through the keep but she did. She covered every inch, confronted every memory, spoke the names of people who should be there and weren’t. Hallways felt endless, doors slammed in her face. The crying hurt the most but she kept going, covering every inch of the keep until she was back when she had been dropped off. “You had insisted I dance that night, Grandmother. Because what, you knew I’d never dance again? I promise you I dance plenty. A similar dance to yours.”

Ciri put away the dagger and drew her sword. She began her forms. “You never taught me this,” she shouted. “They did.” She swung and twisted and the room was slowly filling with dancing people. She continued her first formations, and then her second ones. “You were Calanthe, you should have taught me this!” she shouted. The wisps, ghosts slowly moved around her, a proper dance, and she swung her sword. She did them again and when she finished, sword at the ready and against her cheek, she was facing the throne and Calanthe was sitting there, in her armor, bloody.

She was young, and old, almost alive, and clearly dead. 

“You were a coward,” Ciri called to her. “A fucking coward, for not teaching me to be you.” She threw the sword at the throne and it buried into the wood, and Calanthe was next to her. “You were never as strong as I will be. I am not a cub anymore. I am a wolf, and the world will hear me scream.” She moved slowly in a circle and Calanthe moved with her. 

There was music. Odd it sounded like Jaskier’s music, but he was in Novigrad, they were going to him after this. 

She spun and for a moment she almost thought she saw Jaskier. Ciri spun again and it was Calanthe as she had last seen her. “Grandmother,” she whispered. 

“He is your destiny,” Calanthe said.

“I am my own destiny,” Ciri replied. There was someone standing behind Calanthe, and Ciri stepped to the side to see her.

She was young, but she had never had a chance to grow old. She wasn’t clear, like Calanthe, but Ciri barely remembered her. She supposed what she was seeing was more based off portraits than her memories. “Mama,” Ciri wiped away a tear. “Mama.”

The apparition held open its arms and Ciri shook her head. “No, I figured this out, you aren’t real. None of this is. I am. I am the only living thing in this building and I am making this happen.” Ciri closed her eyes and when she opened them, it look like it had that last night. She closed them and then it looked how the stories said it looked on the night that she became not just a babe in her mother’s stomach, but a child of destiny. Again and then it was just an abandoned keep. “That is the test, isn’t it?” She looked at her grandmother, her mother. “I am yours, and I am destiny’s, and I am mine. The past was written for me, and I will write my future. I cannot fear a place, because it is just a place. Stone and mortar, and yes sometimes dried blood and memories. But that is all.”

Ciri went to the throne and it took work, but she pulled the sword out. “Cintra,” she shouted, “Here stands your queen, with her first and last order of business. That she is not your queen.” Ciri kicked the thrown over. “I am no crown, I am a sword, and I am a wolf.” She closed her eyes one last time and opened them. “And I am a witcher.”

It had all been in her mind, a final test of personal fortitude and will.

And she had passed.

“Oh fuck,” she shouted as the wraith came tearing down the center of the hall. 

Maybe it had also been another sort of test. Ciri spun her sword out, and it slashed at the apparition, and it screamed. It got a few good swipes in at her, and with the aid of one of Lambert’s bombs that was to function as a sort of yrden, she was able to defeat it. She scoured the keep again and brought any bones she found to the main hall. Once she had them all she lit them ablaze. There were some screams and she prayed over them. Ciri watched the fire until it was just embers and the sky was slowly growing brighter.

“I am the child of warriors and magic, and I am forged a witcher this night,” she said. She stood carefully and walked to the doors. She thought they’d be barred but they opened easily. The wolves all stood before her. “What, not as if the most traumatic place of my personal history is haunted or anything.”

“Ha! You all owe me 10 gold each, because I told you my girl could handle her shit.” Lambert ran and she found herself spun in the air and then held close. “I knew you would do it,” he praised and squeezed her tightly. He lay a gross and wet kiss on her cheek, and she pushed him away, hard enough that he landed in the moat. He was still laughing when he came up for air.

Eskel gave her a far gentler hug and quiet, “I am proud of you.”

She ran to Vesemir’s arms which were wide open and let him hold her close. He didn’t say anything at first just held her. “My favourite pup,” he told her. 

“We heard that,” Lambert called from where he was hauling himself out of the water. “And really, I am your favourite, I am a delight.”

Everyone snorted at that, and Ciri was confused when Vesemir pulled her swords off her. “Uncle Vesemir?”

“Those were training swords,” he explained. He turned her and there was Geralt and his hands were full. Vesemir nudged her and she walked over to Geralt.

“Geralt?”

“Steel for the monsters that men are, for the wolves that do not recognize us as kin, for all that is mundane but still wishes you harm anyways.” Geralt held out the sword and Vesemir took it, pulled it from the scabbard. She watched it gleam in the light. It was put in her hand and it was perfectly balanced. She gave it a swing and then held it out. Eskel returned it to its scabbard and a dripping Lambert belted it to her. 

“Silver, for that which only witchers hunt,” Geralt said, “For the magic and terror that lurks in the dark, under the ground, that everyone else runs from, and we run to,” Geralt’s eyes were for a moment filled with tears, until he blinked and cleared his throat. “You did not run this night, and in this dawn that saw you stand true, the last wolves say this to you. You are one of us.” The same steps were repeated with her true silver sword, and she let her tears fall freely as it was strapped to her back.

Geralt stepped forward and pressed his forehead to hers, and hands, so many hands clasped a wolf medallion around her neck.

“What say you?” Vesemir asked.

Ciri laughed a bit. “I could use some food?”

“Fuck yeah, I’m starving. Let’s go find something.” Lambert started to drag her along. “So how was it?”

“Well there was a wraith,” she began. She looked back to say something to Geralt and something caught her eyes. She looked up and saw Calanthe in her armor in a window, her mother in a beautiful green dress in the other. She blinked and they were gone. “Burned some bones, confronted my past, grew as a person. You should try it sometime.”

“Burned plenty of bones, Ciri, why one time -” Ciri pushed him into the moat again.

Geralt came beside her and took her hand. “How bad was it?”

“The only ghosts were the ones in my heart and I bid them rest.”

“And a wraith.”

“And a wraith.” Ciri looked at him. “I survived. I will survive a lot.”

“Please, do,” Geralt said. “Always survive. For me.”

“No, for myself,” Ciri replied. She could smell food and ran ahead buying apples and bread from a cart.

“Miss, if I may say so, you have the look of the old Queen, may the gods give her rest.”

“Do I?” Ciri smiled at the merchant. “My thanks.”

“Could swear, you have her, and the fine princess’s eyes.”

“That’s funny. A witcher with royal eyes, the master bard Jaskier will enjoy that,” Ciri said. She bit into an apple and tossed the rest at her fellow wolves.

There were no queens anymore, not for Cintra.


End file.
